


Settin' The Woods On Fire

by pastelpinksunset



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Dark Comedy, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slow Burn (kinda), i cannot stress enough that it's gonna get really sweet and romantic despite the storyline, it’s teotfw but fiveya, teenagers in love, the end of the fucking world au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelpinksunset/pseuds/pastelpinksunset
Summary: Vanya’s quiet, sullen, and pretty sure she’s a psychopath. Five’s a loud spitfire that's hellbent on running away. Vanya thinks she wants to kill Five (she doesn’t). Five thinks he could fall in love with Vanya.They end up on a crime spree road trip from hell and it’s a coming of age, but with teeth and claws.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Settin' The Woods On Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! so I’m new to fiveya, and I really hope I do this ship justice, because I like it so much.
> 
> tws for this chapter are: mentions of physical abuse, verbal abuse, a brief, non-graphic scene where it's implied Five's stepdad is predatory (nothing happens, he's just subtly creepy and it freaks Five out).
> 
> Brief, non-graphic killing of animals, brief drinking, and fairly frequent intrusive thoughts about murder + planning a murder.
> 
> No knowledge of teotfw required to read!

Vanya Hargreeves is 17, and she’s pretty sure she’s a psychopath. She’s never gotten tested or anything, but she’s done a lot of reading, and she’s known there’s something wrong with her for a very long time. She’s not sure she’s ever laughed once in her life. It grates on her ears when other people do it. She stares at the way their shoulders bounce, the way their eyes run with frothy lightweight tears. It's never contagious to her, she's immune.

When Vanya was 9, her dad tattooed the Hargreeves family crest (a stupid old coat of arms from a stupid, awful old family) onto her left wrist after she’d packed a suitcase and tried to hitchhike out of there. He said he’d done it to remind her where she belonged, but in hindsight, Vanya thinks it was straight-up just a mark of ownership. 

When Vanya was 15, her dad had gone out of town for a week, and she’d taken his favorite game hunting gun off its gaudy mounting in his study, and shot a wandering neighborhood cat dead. Buried it in the yard. When she was burying the cat, she realized it might’ve been someone’s pet, might’ve had a name. 

After that, she killed more animals. Mice, butterflies, rabbits, beetles. She remembers every single one, a taxidermist’s shop in her mind.

Vanya sits alone in the cafeteria every day, headphones on, eyes glossed over, as the other, normal teenagers gossip and roughhouse around her. 

People used to make fun of her until they noticed that she’d gotten herself an underage tattoo. So now they leave her alone, and she sits alone, and she thinks about the dead animals a lot. She thinks she could kill something bigger.

A figure stops in front of her table. Doesn’t leave. Vanya takes off her headphones. “Hey,” she greets, as if she hadn’t just been debating chest wounds vs stomach wounds. 

Five Rothenberg, a lanky boy with his hair combed in a pompous swoop stares back at her for a second, before - “Is that yours?” he nods to her violin case.

Vanya nods.

“I have debate next door to your orchestra. You guys are pretty shit.”

“Fuck off,” Vanya says. 

* * *

Five Rothenberg is 17, and he's the smartest person he knows. Everyone around him is always so incompetent. Sometimes, he has to run, just so the pace of his body can match the pace of his heart, his thoughts. And sometimes, when he’s been running a while, and he hears a bird call or a distant child’s laugh, there’s a split second where he feels free. 

Sometimes, he laughs to himself, when he’s running alone in the park, or the woods, or the shitty streets of his shitty town. 

But then, he scowls like hell when his mom calls out to him that dinner’s ready. He doesn’t hate his mom. It’s just that she used to be nice until she divorced Five’s dad and met Rodd Jones.

 _Rodd_ comes from money. He has the stupidest name Five’s ever heard, and Five’s name is _Five._

Rodd is a Boy Scout troop leader. He goes to one of those obnoxious megachurches where the last head priest (pastor? Five doesn’t know jack shit about Christianity) was fired for sexual misconduct.

Last week, Rodd had given Five a bruise on his jaw that Five had no choice but to blame on tripping up the stairs. Fucking ridiculous, making Five use the oldest lie in the Shitty Parental Figure Survival Guide. Whatever. Throwing a roast chicken at Rodd’s head had been worth it. 

Five’s mom is still nice though. Too nice. She busies herself with her new babies and cooking and cleaning and being everything Rodd wants her to be, pointedly ignoring every time Rodd antagonizes Five. 

Grace Jones has everything she’s ever wanted - perfect house, perfect garden, perfect babies, rich husband. Five knows he’s the only wrench in the gears.

She looks back at him over her shoulder, smiles like a perfect plastic doll, and Five almost can’t see a trace of the woman that raised him in science museums.

Five hasn’t seen his dad since he was 9. Honestly, Five wonders if he’ll do the same thing someday himself, if he’ll start running, and be unable to stop until he’s unfindable. 

He sends Five a card without fail every single birthday. Five keeps them all in a folder in his desk drawer, takes them out when he needs to cry and the tears haven’t come in months. 

Five’s new at his school, and already sitting with an obnoxious group that likes his money and attitude. Certainly they don’t like him as a person. 

A guy that’s probably going to be a frat bro with a football scholarship and decimated braincells in a few years won’t stop asking if he can cheat off Five’s tests. 

When giving him the middle finger doesn’t work, the guy throws an arm around Five’s shoulder, tousles his hair. 

Texts Five a few minutes later, as if they’re friends. 

“What the fuck?” Five snarls.

The guy looks to his friends, laughs in amusement. “Whoa, dude, calm down. Don't be such a fucking dork, man, it's just school."

Everyone at the table snickers and guffaws. Five feels like his face is on fire. He can't begin to explain that he doesn't give a shit about the rules or academic integrity, he just refuses to risk getting in trouble for someone he doesn't give a shit about. He stands, throws his own phone on the ground, shattering it into pieces that he doesn’t bother to pick up.

He storms off, scans the cafeteria for something, anything to latch onto. Vanya Hargreeves is sitting alone, as always. 

Five has English with her. Five can’t remember ever seeing her crack a smile. She’s always wearing big jackets and standing apart from people. She looks like she has a secret. Like she can keep a secret. 

Maybe Vanya’s the answer to the millennium prize problem that is his life. 

Five marches over to her like he knows what he’s doing. She looks up at him through her long bangs, and this is it, there’s no going back.

“Hey,” she says, voice creaky from lack of use, but somehow.. better than Five remembered it from the one time she’d had to read for the class.

“Is that yours?” he asks, nodding to the violin in its case beside her.

Vanya nods.

“I have debate next to your orchestra,” Five says. It’s true. “You guys are pretty shit.” That’s not true. They’re... well, frankly he doesn’t know how to judge orchestras. He just wanted to make her say more than one word.

Vanya replies with two - “Fuck off.”

Well, alright, Five deserved that. 

* * *

Five is new. He’d started that semester. Vanya remembers the day Mr. Anderson had sent him to the principal’s office for backtalk. 

Vanya thinks he could be interesting to kill.

She waits up for him after English. 

He rambles exasperatedly about Mr. Anderson’s stupidity for a fucking while, and Vanya listens. 

She holds his hand, shyly tucks her hair behind her ear, gives him a doe-eyed look, lets him lean in and press their lips together behind one of the school’s pillars. It’s Vanya’s first kiss. She’d be busting a rib at the irony of it if she could laugh.

“What’s this, anyways?” Five says of her tattoo, after kissing the back of her hand like a storybook prince. 

“Some bullshit,” Vanya says. He furrows his brows. She runs her thumb over the back of his hand and it’s sufficient in distracting him, somehow. 

They kiss again.

Five walks her home. “I’d give you my number, but I don’t have a phone,” he says. He says it in this grandiosely exasperated way, like she’s an audience. “I broke it today. On purpose.”

“I don’t have a phone either,” Vanya says. 

“Really?”

“Yeah. They’re annoying.” And her father wouldn’t let her if she wanted one. But they are also annoying. 

Five grins.

Vanya bites her lip. “Do you want to go out on a date?” she asks, because he’s so close to trusting her. He probably already does, she just needs that little bit of extra connection before he lets his guard down once and for all. “With me,” she clarifies.

“Well, yeah,” Five says. “Obviously.”

So what they do is, the next day after school, they go to a diner with shiny plastic booths and dishes that could probably hospitalize someone that tried to eat them in one sitting. They take a window seat and Five says he’ll pay for her food. 

A waitress coos at their interactions. “My, what a thoughtful young man.” 

Five blinks. Screws his face up into a smile, but it isn’t a nice one, not like before. 

“May I take your orders?”

“Uh - “ Vanya begins, before Five cuts her off.

“I will have the Smokin’ Gun Spicy Chicken burger,” he says. “A Peanut Butter Dream milkshake with marshmallows on top, and an extra fucking spoon.” 

The waitress - Kathy, Vanya sees on her nametag- puts her little book down, appalled. “Excuse me?”

Five points at Vanya innocently. “For her.”

Vanya gives a tight-lipped smile. 

“Sorry, you can’t use language like that,” Kathy says sternly. “Otherwise I’m going to have to ask you and your girlfriend to leave.”

“Gosh, okay,” Five says. “Okay, I’m sorry, ma’am.” 

Kathy remains unconvinced, eyes locked on Five like he’s a feral raccoon and she’s not sure what he’ll do next.

Five smiles at her. Bares his teeth, more like. “I’ll have a spicy bitchin’ burger, a peanut fucker milkshake - “

Kathy puts her hands on her hips. “Okay, that’s enough, young man. Larry!” she shouts to someone in the back.

Five shouts too. “Yeah, go get Larry! See if _Larry_ can make me a peanut butter milkshake, you fucking cunt!”

Vanya’s never seen anyone act like this in public in her life. Holy Christ. Mother of fuck, Five. 

Five is still smiling as he stands, grabbing his jacket. “Bye, Larry!” he calls out as he stomps out the door, slamming it behind him.

Evidently, Five has some issues. 

Kathy’s staring at Vanya expectantly now. Vanya slides out of the booth (the resulting squeaking sound makes her want to fucking die) and powerwalks after Five.

A normal person would ask Five what possessed him to snap at a relatively harmless waitress like that.

Vanya just walks by his side again, right where they left off. 

Five’s still fuming. “I think we live in the most boring town in the country. On the planet.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Vanya agrees. 

“Everyone’s so fucking lame here. Cursing is just _words._ Why are old people so pissed about it all the time?” Five kicks at a rock in their path, sends it flying a good distance.

“They were raised in a different time,” Vanya says. “A stupider time. So they’re stupid now.”

An older woman and a younger man in a convertible stopped at a stoplight are being stupid gooey romantic with each other. The woman’s wearing pink cat eye glasses and a dress with little bluebirds all over it. “Not her though. She’s cool,” Five says. “I bet they’ve been to like, fifty countries. They’re probably spies. 

Vanya doesn’t see it. “I think they own the donut shop on Broadhurst.”

“Whatever. They’ve _lived_. Clearly,” Five insists. He looks at Vanya intently. “Can we go to your house?”

Blood smeared on the polished hardwood floors, Five laying motionless, neck twisted, blood soaking his dark hair flat against his skull.

“Yeah, sure,” Vanya replies.

Vanya lives in this fancy old house with three floors, big symmetrical columns, and lion statues at the front gate, and yeah, a front gate a ways from the grand front entrance.

“Oh,” Five says, taking in the sight of it. “Nice.”

It’s so bizarre to see another person in this house that isn’t one of Vanya’s dad’s friends. Especially someone young.

She’ll have to kill Five and hide the body before her father gets home.

Five’s eye catches on a framed picture of a young woman proudly wearing a gold medal. The woman has just about the same face as Vanya, the same short height, only she’s strong, visibly muscular, her hair’s all 80s permed.

“Is this your mom?” Five asks, looking back and forth between Vanya and the old photo. 

Vanya nods. “She lives in Japan.”

“Cool,” Five says. “You look like her.”

Vanya has to remind herself to breathe, in and out, come on, make your chest rise and fall.

Five is a slippery motherfucker and he evidently can’t stay still for longer than a minute - case in point, in the time it takes for Vanya to make them some slices of toast, he’s already out in her yard, on _the_ bench. 

He digs his shoe into the dirt, back and forth, drums his fingers on his knee. “Your house is very 1880s. It's cool.”

“I don’t like it,” Vanya blurts out. 

Five frowns. “Why not?”

Last time Vanya sat on this bench -

So, “I just don’t,” is all Five’s gonna get from her.

Five scarfs down the toast like he was starving, and purses his lips as he looks through the cabinets, not asking for permission. “Where do you keep your coffee?”

“We don’t have coffee. Dad hates it,” Vanya says. 

Five wrinkles his nose. 

Vanya can feel the weight of a knife she’s not even holding, the weight of... something on her chest.

“What?” Five asks. She’d been staring. She hopes it passed for lovestruck or something. 

The front double doors open with force.

Vanya flinches, jumps up from her seat. Should she tell Five to hide?

Where would he even be able to hide that Reginald wouldn’t find him? Hell, Vanya bets he can smell fresh blood like a shark. Five looks panicked because she looks panicked. Reginald enters the room, and Five stands in his path, in front of Vanya. Not that it does any good, Reginald pushes Five aside in one fluid motion. But still. Something about Five trying makes Vanya's chest go tight again. 

“Insolent girl," Reginald begins. "You left the door unlocked. You’re lucky a burglar hasn’t robbed us blind, hasn’t taken you for ransom.” 

Vanya nods, looking at the dark wood surface of the table, eyes out of focus. 

“And I take it this is _your_ uninvited guest.” 

“He’s from school,” Vanya mumbles. “In debate club.”

Reginald looks Five over. “Hm. No. I won’t allow your continued presence in my home. You’re a distraction.”

Five’s hands ball up into fists.

Vanya shakes her head behind her father, attempting to telepathically beg Five to skip a repeat performance of what he’d done at the diner, Reginald would destroy him, then destroy her for breaking a rule as paramount as “no guests unless he approves of them” - which of course, means no guests for her _ever._

Five turns on his heel and runs out the door. 

At school the next morning, Vanya catches up to Five after assembly.

“Sorry,” she says. “I should’ve warned you.”

Five shrugs. “Not your fault. Your dad’s a dick.”

“Yeah, I know.” God, does Vanya know. He’d forbidden her from eating dinner or breakfast. She’s lightheaded, leading the two of them toward the vending machines. “I’ve always wanted to punch him in the face.” 

“I think you should,” Five says. "I think it's only fair."

She kicks the vending machine when her candy bar gets stuck. Five grins, kicks it alongside her, punches it once and winces, cradling his hand. “Bitchass machine,” he growls. 

Vanya wonders what sound he’ll make when he’s really hurt. 

He sticks his lanky arm in the machine and gets her a bag of pretzels. 

“Can I hear you play? The violin?”

It was important to sound confident in moments like this. “Yeah. My dad can get fucked. He works on Saturdays. Just be gone before he gets home.”

He will be gone by then. He won’t have a choice.

Five doesn’t show. Vanya waits for hours, hours before he’s even expected, because she needs to work out the logistics beforehand, needs to sharpen her favorite of Reginald's knives. She also practices the violin. But then, an hour passes after Five was supposed to be there, and Vanya’s starting to think he might not be coming.

* * *

Sometimes, Five worries that he ruins things. That he’s a bull in a china shop, a fucking brat, like Rodd says. He stares at himself in the mirror, fussing over his hair, making sure it falls just right. 

But with Vanya, he’s not sure he gets that sense. Vanya makes him feel... comfortable. Weirdly safe. Her big brown eyes are excruciatingly gentle. 

Grace bounces up the stairs, even more dressed up than usual. “Five!”

“What?” Five snaps, feeling bad instantly. 

Grace’s smile droops momentarily. She hands him an expensive black and white suit. “Put these on and come downstairs. It’s going to be such a wonderful party.”

Five grimaces. He’d been thinking about Vanya so much that he must’ve tuned out all of his mom and Rodd’s prattling about this nonsense. “I have plans. Sorry.”

When's the last time Five's hung out with his mom? Fuck. _Fuck!_ Too long ago. “Just for a while, then?" Grace pleads. "We need to make a good impression.” She puts a hand on his cheek. “Please, sweetheart,” she says. “I want you to be there.”

The suit fits perfectly. Five wonders if it makes him look like he’s in his twenties. He wonders if Vanya would like it. 

Grace is serving their shitty rich guests, serving them like she’s a waitress, while also smiling nonstop and making enthusiastic conversation, and Five thinks it looks positively exhausting. But then, he knows she sleeps like the dead these days. Doesn't stay up all night crying like she used to. Anyways. Five spends all of five minutes sulking in the corner, before realizing this is a prime chance to swipe some of his mom’s wine with no one noticing.

He takes several large swigs right from the bottle, smiling at the heat it brings to his throat, face, cheeks. 

Rodd chuckles from where he’s leaning against the wall, where Five hadn’t noticed him. “You little shit,” he says, unnervingly quiet. “Mom wanted you to play nice today, young man. And so did I. But to be frank, I’m not surprised. You’re always pulling this.”

“Yeah, well. I have low expectations for you too,” Five sneers. “And somehow, you always go lower.”

Five braces himself for a slap, a shove, a kick. But Rodd just takes the bottle from Five’s hand and drinks from it himself. 

“Your life is bullshit,” Five insists, correctly. 

Rodd steps closer. “Well, if you hate it so much, then why don’t you just leave? I’m serious. You’d be doing us a favor.”

Five feels like Rodd’s stabbed him in the guts. He forces himself to laugh to cover it up. 

Rodd’s altogether too close now. Has he always looked at Five like that? “The suit fits well.” 

“I know,” Five says, heart hammering. He hopes that sounded like smartassery and not compliance.

Rodd pats Five on the shoulder. It lingers too long to feel fatherly. Rodd walks away, and Five exhales, sinking to the floor with relief. 

Grace’s heels click on the floor, over in the sitting room. She and Rodd murmur to each other, she laughs, it echoes. 

Five stays there for a second, curled up behind the counter. 

It’s like everything shifts in that second - Five feels like he’s stepped outside of his body, seeing where he is really clearly. And on his current life situation and trajectory, Five thinks only three words: Fuck. This. Shit.

He puts on his jacket and walks the fuck to Vanya’s mansion, sneaks in through the gate and knocks on the window he can see her through.

She jumps, rushes to open it.

Five’s furious and miserable, and he wants to kiss Vanya about it. 

Vanya’s got the knife tucked under the couch armrest at her left hand. 

Five thinks he could fall in love with Vanya.

Vanya wonders if it’d be easier to slit Five’s throat if his back was to her. Would it be better not to see his face?

Five sighs. 

“Are you okay?” Vanya asks.

“Let’s get out of here,” Five says. 

“What?”

“I’m serious,” Five just about shouts. “Let’s leave this goddamn town now. You hate it, I hate it. Our parents are assholes. You have a car.”

“It’s my dad’s” Vanya corrects quietly.

“Who’s an _asshole._ ” Five breathes heavily, angrily. “I’m going, whether you come with me or not. Are you in?” Five wants her to say yes more than he’s ever wanted anything.

Vanya lets go of the knife where she’d been clutching it under the armrest. She figures, on the road she wouldn’t have to rush. “Yeah. Okay.”

Vanya tells Five she’ll be just a minute, and she shoves Reginald’s precious cabinet of Delft Blue over, breaking every last piece of porcelain he’s always loved more than her. 

Then, she follows Five out the door, and steals her dad’s car, Five riding shotgun beside her. 

“Are you scared?” Five asks, grinning.

“I dunno,” Vanya says honestly. “A little bit, maybe.”

Five rolls down the window, sticks his hand out. “I’m not.”

But he probably should be.


End file.
